Certain computer system users, particularly users of mobile computing devices such as laptop computers, often need to connect their computer systems to different display mechanisms, such as display monitors (or simply monitors). For example, although a laptop computer has an internal monitor, a computer user may connect a laptop computer to a large monitor or equivalent projection device when giving a presentation. Other examples include a user that connects a mobile computer to one monitor at work and a different monitor at home. Indeed, certain types of mobile computer systems have been designed without any monitor, and are intended to be moved between destinations where they connect to a monitor at each destination.
Moreover, although not widely known, contemporary operating systems (such as Microsoft Corporation's Windows® XP operating system) support multiple monitors in various ways, including in a way that allows the multiple monitors' screens to be used as one larger screen. In other words, rather than simultaneously displaying the same image on two or more monitors or the like (referred to as clone mode), the operating system extends the monitors connected to the installed video cards (or a multiple-headed card) to act as a single desktop, over which the user can move the mouse pointer and drag program windows between monitors. In this extended-screen mode, the operating system maintains separate software-managed settings for each monitor, e.g., resolution, refresh rate, color depth and so forth. There are also situations, such as with gaming applications, in which multiple monitors may be used for a single application that spans the monitors; in this span mode, the monitors typically have the same settings.
Thus, users have a great deal of flexibility in the ways in which they may connect a computer system to one or more display mechanisms. However, any time there is a change to a computer system's current configuration of display mechanisms, e.g., a monitor is connected or disconnected, a possibly significant amount of user action is required to adjust for the change. This requires the user to have knowledge as to how to change settings based on the reconfiguration, and sometimes requires that the user memorize or experiment with desired settings.
One reason for this reconfiguration requirement is that there are many types of display mechanisms to which a user can connect, many having different capabilities, screen sizes and so forth. Another reason that some computer systems have multiple users, and each user may want different settings. While some users may not mind reconfiguring settings when changing from a work monitor to a home monitor or vice-versa, or whenever logging in after a different user logs out, other users are not knowledgeable enough to make the desired changes, or do not bother changing, e.g., a user tolerates another user's preferences, or uses the same settings at two locations (a “lowest-common-denominator” solution, even though other settings with one of the monitors would be preferable). In other situations, even sophisticated computer users may not know anything about a particular display mechanism to which they need to connect, such as a user giving a presentation who needs to connect to whatever large monitor or projection device is made available. Moreover, in the near future, it is likely that many television sets and airplane-installed displays will provide computer connections to serve as computer monitors, whereby air travelers and/or travelers staying in hotel rooms and the like will connect to the television or display, requiring a reconfiguration of the computer's video settings to adapt to that television or display. Note that a preset solution is not feasible; for example, because of different circumstances, there will be many varieties of such display mechanisms, each with different capabilities, e.g., a hotel room television is almost certain to be larger than a display built into an airplane seat.
In practice, when connecting to a particular display mechanism, resolution, color depth and refresh rate are all variables that a user may need or want to reconfigure. These settings are determined by the display mechanism's capabilities in conjunction with the capabilities of the video card (or cards) installed in the computer system. Screen size is another reason to change existing settings, as the viewable objects that look good on one display mechanism may be too small or too large when used with another display mechanism's settings. Power consumption is yet another factor that needs to be considered, because having certain settings (e.g., a higher refresh rate) consumes more power than others, and may be undesirable when trying to conserve battery life.
In sum, there are numerous ways to configure computer systems for operating with display mechanisms, and there are numerous types of display mechanisms to which a user may connect. There are also a variety of options when multiple display mechanisms are available for connecting to a computer system. What is needed is a way to simplify the user experience when connecting to one or more display mechanisms, yet do so in a flexible manner that handles many possible user scenarios and gives users desirable results.